Handsome and effeminate, quiet but proud, the sinister Akito Kobayashi has a passion for the occult and has developed a computer program to summon demons and the living dead. But little does he know that fellow high school students Kojirou Souma and Saki Yagami are reincarnations of powerful and benevolent spirits. When the pair's friends have become targeted by demons trying to harvest their life energies, they must harness their dark metaphysical powers to destroy Kobayashi's threatening program, or risk losing their loved ones forever.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
moridin84
I have memories from watching this late at years about, it almost threw me off watching anime altogether. That's how bad it was. Thankfully Spriggan came on after that, it cleared away my desire to throw up at least. I admit, this is an impression from watching it more then half a dozen years ago...but I have no intention of watching this again just to confirm that impression.
bedheadred
Demons, ninja clan demon hunters, reincarnation and a naked loli I studied Buddhism in college and there were a lot of references to Gods and demons in this OVA that I didn’t understand. They also referred to one demon as Satan, which is a Western religious reference. In my opinion, this anime needs to remain locked in the vault of bad 90′s anime.
animegorey
I was on the fence for a long time with this one. I finally gave in and bought it on eng dub (cheaply). It was a mistake. I couldn't find it anywhere to sample it. I didn't like the style of character animation or action scenes. Everything gave me the impression of a cheaply made mistake of an anime, like Kimera or Apocalypse Zero. Judge is another one that this reminded me of. Odd relationship going on between male lead and male villian. Sound was poor and characters were bland. It's one of those short and cheap OVAs. Unfortunately, this is a bad one. Ilike these short OVAs like BioHunter and Vampire Wars. Both are way better than this one.
LIQfilms
"Ah! It's getting longer!" -Kojirou Souma, 1995. Oh boy! It's that time again to talk about an awful OVA from the nineties and today we have Shin Megami Tensei, based off the popular game series which I know nothing about. Aside from, that is, that many monsters seem to based off sexual organs such as Arioch, who seems to be in the shape of a vagina, and Mara, who is in the shape of a dick, along with a plethora of others who look like strange sexual...things. I literally found a top ten list in which the writer goes over the monsters that look like some sortof sexual organ. JESUS CRISUS.
Anywhore, from what I could gather from general consensuses and from a friend who had played the games and watched this OVA too, is that this show has little to nothing to do with the games in the series which makes my job a little easier as the reviewer since I don't need to be as familiar with background information of the sorts. Not that background information would help anyway; this show will remain a mess of ideas with no idea what the hell it wants to do or who to focus on. It tries to squeeze every character and plot point into a small, collective fifty minute time frame and as a result feels rushed beyond repair and hardly satisfying to watch. Allow me to elaborate:
The narrative of our tale focuses on a complete dickhead called Akito Kobayashi, who wants to summon a tone of demons in order to get revenge on the world for his mistreatment. But what horror has this young man had to endure, you may ask? Does he live under an evil dictatorship that constantly punishes him? Nope. Does he live in a cruel and unforgiving world that must be punished? Nah. Does the entirety of the world hate him and wish him dead? No. The cruel, horrible thing that happened to him that he feels that he must destroy the world over for is that he was picked on by a couple of kids as a child. Damn! Sure, bullying sucks but destroying and killing all human life as an act of revenge? Sure, why not. Makes perfect sense. It's just like Sasuke from Naruto, who decided that his entire village must die just because a couple of the elders messed him over. This makes Akito's plan and emotional attachment to the narrative a complete joke. Aside from there not being enough time for developing his character, his reason for destroying the world is as good as a reason for me to stick my dick in a Cheerio . It's stupid, is what I'm getting at.
The OVA even tries to make us feel bad for the guy in the tritest way possible. Near the end of the show, another character comes across Akito with a girl who is lying naked next to him with a gaping wound in her chest with blood covering the entire area. Akito has a sword in his hands and while granted he wasn't the one to actually kill her, the other guy runs and punches him in the face as he believes, as anyone would, that Akito had killed her to which the Akito goes off on a tangent about how everyone is always beating him for misunderstandings. Like, no SHIT Sherlock. You're standing there, with a sword and a dead body at your feet and you wonder why someone thought that you had committed the murder? You dumb-ass.
The narrative is rather lacklustre and dull with hardly anything all too interesting happening at all. Things move at such an awkward pace and plot points, which are brought up at first, are never addressed again, disappearing into the deep void in which Half-Life 3 resides in. The other characters, who are affected by the demons are all equally as dull and boring as each other and have hardly any time to grow or develop as people. In fact, the only thing that develops in this show is how much clothing the female characters lose.
Even superficially it's hard to enjoy since there is better shlock action out there. The character designs were pretty choppy aside from the demons, however, which I'd imagine were ripped from the game and all look pretty damn cool. They give off a Devilman sort-of vibe which I've always liked. The action and animation were pretty dull with poor framing and composition. However, be perfectly fair, there were some inventive shading and camera shots, although these were few and far in between. The final fight too, I felt, was pretty fun, even if I had no emotional attachment or all too much in the way of investment at all. It's flashy, over-the-top and loud but I find it kind of funny how Kojirou (another one of the main cast, I guess) yells about protecting the land and fighting for peace while demolishing half of the damn city. Seems kinda counter-intuitive, aye? Aside from that, it's hard to see it as trashy action since the action was so boring. The gore is not as over-the-top as Genocyber and if you're watching just for the few lesbian sex scenes, then hentai would be better suited for that need.
One positive thing I can say, however, is how much fun I had with the poor English dub. While it certainly is not the worst, it's definitely not anything great either but damn, this OVA was fun! Nobody seems to care about delivering their lines in a natural way making for some hilarious unintentional comedy, most noticeably near the end where everything character gasps 'AH!' in a row and the outcome left me laughing hard. However, while there were a few times in which the terrible dub made me laugh it gets washed over by the mundane and boring script. There are funnier dubs out there, so this show doesn't even have that to stand out from the rest.
The OVA is just so dull and mediocre that it's hard to care about anything or to even get too annoyed with it. It's awful on every level and I could only recommend this to the most die-hard of Shin Megami fans. Or if you like to see naked little girls, ya sick weeb.
Sbt3d
Although the OVA aren't related to the games released at the time, they still hold the themes of the games (cults, demons, etc). The story itself was not the greatest, although it felt decent enough to follow. The characters were decent enough to move along. Art & Sound were decent for the time (dub). I believe that without knowing the origins of the Shin Megami Tensei story, many people may be thrown off by this OVA. For anyone coming in blind, I would recommend to read up prior to learn some history to understand more than what is being shown. These episodes feel more ofa little treat for the hardcore SMT fans who enjoy the games.
tl;dr: Play the games, then watch the OVA
iamKetranLang
This one is not scary, in fact it was a pretty sweet story, closest thing to a good boy love story I can stand to see . One of the main character Kobayashi is gay. When he was small, he was bullied for that and his friend Kojiro helped him. Now Kobayashi comes back in the same high school to show his friend Kobayashi how much awesome he turned now he knows occult and can summon demons. However, Kobayashi gets jealous of Kojiro's other friend Yosuke. I like this one more because it was emotional cause it tries to care about the characters. They gotsoul, they try to survive. The character you feel are important aren't thrown away. Many times I thought oh he gonna be slaughtered for some nice gory scene, then we can move on from him like bye. The alternative setting was just like that, more scary, incoherent story but is just a good Halloween spook on Halloween.
Sidewinder51
Rate a 7 English Dubbed Story Introduction was good. Had a similar flair as to one of the final destination movies. As for conclusion mixed feelings. On one had the way the story was present the conclusion really did a good job at making one connect emotionally. That sacrifice will stay with me for awhile. Although, they over did it by repeating their closer over and over and over again. Art No complaints. Characters looked good. Soundno complaints
Character
Above the normal for most characters involved, moderate.
Enjoyment
Best viewed if you felt wronged in your life. A real life lesson on what can go wrong and how it is never to late change it back.
CelesteForbes
Don't go into this expecting a masterpiece, it's still watchable up until the ending where it falls apart. Story: 5 Not memorable at all really, basically some edgy teenager who wants to summon demons to get revenge on humanity except the one guy at school who protected him from homophobic bullies as a kid, the demon he's working with uses him and betrays him and wants to kill the childhood friend who has a god in him I guess? You pretty much figure this all out in the intro but the thing is we really don't learn much about these characters or the lore to understand theirmotivations, like we're supposed to feel sorry for the bullied kid but he calls some female classmates getting to know him "stupid ugly girls" and then sacrifices them to demons? I still watched onwards due to my love of horror but by the time I was reaching the ending it was full of pre 2000s cliches (that we still see today) that I just gave up.
Art: 5
Nothing special just your standard generic 90s/early 2000s pokemon looking faces, I like the character designs though very 90s especially the monsters which is the strong suit of most 80s/90s anime for me, very detailed. At some point I had the anime on double speed and the fighting animation was still slow and it wasn't even the detailed monsters but just some girls fighting, the ending fight was just boring godzilla style nonsense.
Sound: 4
Now that I think about it there wasn't really any background music throught the whole thing even the school scenes, mostly just 90s ambient sound effects throughout the action parts which weren't dreadful but seriously you wont even notice them.
Characters: 5
The human characters had potential to be interesting especially the female ones but by the middle and the end I just saw them nude and laying around uselessly even the gay antagonist was laying around with them while the other characters had a boring battle. We never even learn much about the main character other than he seems like an okay guy who sticks up for people and likes the occult, he is literally gone for the whole of the last episode which annoyed me because I know very little about these other characters to care about the ending with them. The demons behaved very dumb they even had silly voices ,besides their creepy appearance they didn't feel like much of a threat.
Overall: 6
Not the worst OVA ever, its strongest points would be the 90s aesthetic which some might enjoy for nostalgia and the horror elements. The first episode was decent but it just falls apart by the second. I would definitely watch the first episode again as I did quite enjoy that short feeling of "hey this could actually be good" it had a lot of potential but ultimately failed to deliver a satisfying conclusion. Watch it with some anime horror fan friends or if you're bored but don't expect anything special.
breddie_sucks
There are the times when you play a game, its roots gritty, dark, imbalanced but, overall, passionate and full of life. Then you come across a later entry of the franchise which was able to channel the old spirit, being only a bit more balanced and bit tweaked for the mainstream. Then you see the fond franchise of yours being cast into the 9th circle of Hell and become something that completely undoes the nuance and fondness of the franchise and sends you down a downward spiral of hate, your own Kaz Miller arc. The reason why I am singing the tragic ballad of Falloutfranchise is because, well, I want to emphasize that Tokyo Revelations does not fall under this specific category. But is this a sole reason to love it? Nope. Just because it didn’t fall victim to one cliché doesn’t mean that it didn’t fall for another cliché. Hence here I am doing a post mortem session on an OVA which isn’t really anything. But I have this saddistic pleasure in shitting upon something particular in verbose fashion, hence I rest my case.
Shin Megami Tensei may seem synonymous to its derivatives, Persona, Devil Summoner and Digital Devil Saga, a whole damn genre which is pretty interesting and has its own characteristic countenance, but the entries which remains my favorite are the first, the second and Strange Journey. To start from the first game, there is a characteristic plainness that really complemented the game; plainness as in the sort you feel in the soft bops, that is, it gives enough headroom for introspection. For how it is bound to the technical thresholds of its time, it really transcended its potence with a streamlined gameplay design. The premise of the characters involved, especially the protagonist (Kazuya) are simple and clean, no complicated FFVIIR nonsense. You are a teen who woke up one morning and saw a new mail on your PC. And it doesn’t resort to graphic pompadour for its exotic feel either; its artistic influences and the implementation of them in specific troupes are pretty interesting to say the least. The over-the-top troupes of having Imperial Japanese vs Gen MacArthur is an obvious correlation, this isn’t the first time Japanese media used the victim complex card; but what is more amusing is that the analogy is rather a double layered meta humor, which when introspected, gives a better comprehensive study of humans ambitions and its consequences, regardless of political inferences. I can go on about SMT1, but I have to keep it simple: It is a game which makes you to experiment (like Half Life 2) as well as give you headroom to meditate over abstracts.
Now, onto Tokyo Revelations, remember the praises I was shovelling at SMT1? Wipe it off the slate, for none of the characteristic elements persisted to the screen. On one hand, I know that the characteristic features of SMT1 shines specifically as a game for it was intended for it, but who doesn’t love to make a cliché microwave spinoff out of a franchise to shill some bucks? A lazy nothingburger which took few characteristic factors from SMT, literally apes CLAMP’s X troupe and ends it like a Pokemon movie, in short, serves as a faithful adaptation of Trout Mask Replica. For a hour of runtime, it initiated too many stuff which was ignored the second it was thrown in; like me picking nuts and raisins out of a damn muesli; and the best part here is, they are either grafted shoujo fantasy troupes or the subject-matter in the games which the screenwriters are too busy to read between the lines.
The claustrophobic existential atmosphere, unique to the original game is compensated by graphic details for the sakeof. The plot is just as silly and factitious, the same way how I felt after watching the OVA of Tokyo Babylon to see its neat thematic beauty get overridden with watered down troupes. To be honest, I feel brave enough to call this OVA a neat “attempt” of bootlegging X/1999 but this time, it is Shin Megami Tensei Ediiton; its artistic primers are pretty synonymous to the commercialized Gustav cutouts in Skinner’s office in Ratatouille. To trace the degree to which it reminded me of X, I found the main love arc oddly reminiscent of Subaru-Seishirou, the issue here being the lack of narrative consistency (being gay is fine; but to kill to get your man, well, I’ll pass). Another instance is the scene where the summoners arrive to the school; I am lying if I say I didn’t get reminded of the Seals/Minions introduction in X/1999, a feel of overarching fear and ambiguity. One could argue that adapting a specific thematic style isn’t bootlegging, which I fully agree, but it doesn’t fill the vacuum of a watchable plot. You can adapt a specific style, and construct your own style from the influence. FotNS gave life to a whole thematic troupe, whose use served as a primer to other unique styles. CLAMP is still up there in terms of artistic influence, but this is not the one. In this instance, this feels like just another commercial souvenir born out of proxy artistic notions rather than actual narrative.
One thing I really liked about the originals is how abstract and interpretative the graphic description was; let it be the more simpler and normal ones, to very eccentric and chaotic subjects. The simplicity of the sprites went along well with this style. It is not that the game extras official art isn’t a thing, but still the design doc artwork kind of enriches the descriptions. Now, drumrolls please, the OVA did something polar opposite. Few graphic details are reinforced just for the sakeof. It is not that the original game didn’t have a whole arsenal of dark jokes and crude particulars, but it was well-executed and gives a primer for introspection. Here, cliché tagged plotpoints are shoehorned onto cliché tagged characters, using cliché surface-level thematics. A similar analogy I can put forth is Fallout 3, where, in order to reinforce the “mature” tag of the game, you see the unsavory characters use the word “fuck” for a dozen per second, in order to rub the “antagonist” character troupe onto our faces. Unsurprisingly disappointing enough, something similar happens here, for few scenes are present just to make it faintly reminiscent of a complete layman’s interpretation of SMT, deficit of quality, nuance and intent.
A shoujo anime adaptation for SMT sounds both richly potent or flaccid pompadour depending upon the decree of the bureaucrats, and unsurprisingly enough, it is a cottoncandy pink day-dreaming to assume the average publisher to market something which is incredibly niche and possibly controversial on surface level. Once we had folks in church preaching against Pokemon, today you have various groups blinded with mere hate. History repeats itself, once with pitchforks, now with either twitter Curry’s paradoxes or /b/’s . That pretty much explains my disappointment in regard to this OVA, for the potentcy is very verbose, but given the mess caled reality, something of that scale of disconnection from the mainstream troupes either dampens the returns due to extreme verbosity, or arouses surface-level false dichotomies and subsequent hostility. The last thing a bureaucrat wants is their net returns to decrease, which somehow supercedes the rationale behind actions.
So, well, given the whole shitshow, one may ask why I watched this OVA; well, two reasons persist. One being that I have this sadistic pleasure while kicking down on something and calling names on it, especially when it is a spin-off or a supposed “canon”. Or, a more sober and sensible reason, the English dub. I usually don’t watch dubs, but I kinda stumbled upon this one in its dub and I am genuinely happy I watched it dubbed; for it is yet another “Ghost Stories”-esque American humor appended upon a cookie cutter Japanese anime. I know this is not unique, for there are better instances, but I should admit the comedic timings are damn good and the jokes didn’t feel out of place or overwhelming, for it wasn’t shoehorned to be the crème a la crème. I enjoyed it, and if you like westernized-dubs, you will have a neat watch.
Tl;dr – A bland uninspired spinoff whose existence doesn’t mean anything, but it was blessed with a good dub.
